Another new multi-chapter story
Research of the Murderous Kind
Prologue
Author: Thalanee
Verse: may I call it Castle-Verse? It’s a movie- AU, anyway
Rating: pg-13
Warnings: mentions of crime
Disclaimer: They still don’t belong to me.
Summary: When Jazz, a famous mystery writer, ventured out in search of new material he’d never expected this… JazzxProwl
Author’s Notes: Don’t ask me where this came from… maybe an overdose of “Castle” combined with the fact that Beckett reminds me of Prowl and Rick Castle of Jazz. Another multichapter thing… and I haven’t even finished the other two yet *growls at heap of innocent looking bunnies*
I’ll write the last chapter of “The Things We Do For Love”, after that I will focus on “The Jester”, so posting for this will be somewhat irregular.
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Jazz stared down at the unmoving form in a kind of stupor, unable to move or even pick up his jaw of the floor.
He was dead. The mech was dead.
Jazz had killed an enforcer!
How could this have happened? And how come he wasn’t sure how it had happened? He’d written about this kind of thing often enough in his career and he prided himself on the fact that he was one of the most observant mech’s on the planet, if he might say so himself, so he should know how he had ended up in a dark, only marginally lit alley with a dead body at his pedes.
Only a few hours ago the famous Cybertronian mystery writer had finally ventured out of his flat in search of some inspiration, something or someone that was interesting or inspiring enough to help him get over his severe bout of writer’s block. The thought of writing another “Meister”-novel made him cringe whenever he contemplated it. Fans loved the enigmatic and cool spy, that had made Jazz famous, but the writer couldn’t stand him anymore. Writing about Meister was becoming boring, a chore. Jazz had even noticed that he’d started to repeat himself. It was only little things, but that was when he decided he needed something new.
After weeks of agonizing and trying to come up with something, he had gone out in search for ideas.
Nothing had caught his interest.
Frustrated the silver mech had gone to his favorite bar in all of Iacon, where he had gotten drunk enough to think that using a dimly lit alley as a shortcut was a really good idea…
Needless to say it wasn’t.
Humming to himself, Jazz had enjoyed the crisp night air that made him feel somewhat less drunk than he actually was. With a spring in his step he walked along, suddenly feeling that he was on the verge of having an epiphany. He could literally feel this great idea, it was almost within his grasp…
Which was why even with his spiked sensor horns, with which he could pick up the slightest sound didn’t pick up the sounds of a pairs of pedes rushing closer, the sounds of a bot’s whirring intakes as they ran through the very same alley he was standing in, until it was already too late.
With a loud clatter of metal, someone bowled into him from behind, causing Jazz to lose his balance and fall flat on his face on the dirty ground of the street. For a moment another bot’s weight rested on him, before he heard a curse and the weight was lifted from his back as the other mech pushed himself off the ground and took off again.
Disoriented Jazz looked up, his blue visor flashing and he only caught a glimpse of the other mech’s frame and face as his assailant looked behind him and vanished around the corner into another street without uttering a single word of apology. Huffing Jazz got up of the ground himself, dusting off his now dirty and slightly scratched silver frame. He would need a shower once he returned home.
Distantly he heard another set of steps approaching when a slight glint had caught his attention. It seemed like the other mech had dropped something. Curious Jazz stepped closer to pick up the object from where it had been dropped.
As soon as he touched it he knew what it was: a military standard blaster of the Delta-1 class, the one every soldier was issued (he knew the research for his novels would turn out useful someday). Curious, he turned it over in his hand, maybe if he found the registration number he could return it to the rude mech.
For now he couldn’t resist to play around with the weapon, holding it in his hand like he imagined Meister would, whistling the tune of his favourite crime series, and posing. Some part of him was aware that he was being silly, but he often was more… playful when he was inebriated, and certainly less careful.
At least that was the only way how Jazz could explain to himself how he had missed the second mech to enter the alley’s other side at a dead run, his own gun raised. The doorwinged silhouette wasn’t something he thought he could have overlooked, but somehow he did.
Turning around and stepping into the light the only thing he saw of the new mech was a blurr of black and white and the surprise in golden optics before they collided head on, the other mech too fast and startled to stop in time and Jazz not quick enough to step aside. They crashed and fell in a tangle of limbs.
Only the crash should not have been so noisy.
It was the wrong sound, not the one of metal hitting metal. It was the sound of a gunshot. Dizzy, Jazz stood up to see what had happened, he saw that the black and white frame on the ground wasn’t moving.
And the blaster in his own hand was warm. With growing dread Jazz looked at the blaster he had picked up. It had fallen onto the ground sometime during their clash. A small innocuous looking light indicated that it had been fired recently.
And the black and white mech, who had enforcer markings Jazz realized, still wasn’t moving.
Not quite sure what to do next he shook his head to dislodge the memory of the crash and looked around, but there was no other bot to see. No one seemed to have heard or seen what had happened here, not even the mech the enforcer had been pursuing at a run just a few moments ago.
The blaster was still on the ground, right where it had been dropped after the sound of a shot had echoed throughout the neighborhood. Now only the faint sounds of music drifting out of the bars that littered this seedier side of the city was heard. There were no sirens, no shouts of outrage or fright. They were utterly alone.
After looking left and right, his gaze drifted back to the body at his pedes.
His processors shrieked in protest at the scene he beheld: the black and white paint of the enforcer gleamed eerily in the light of the streetlamps that reached this part of the street and the red chevron with its gold base positively seemed to glow. Graceful white doorwings didn’t even twitch even though the mech was lying on his back. Actually he looked like he could have been asleep. It was as if the mech’s golden optics would power up any moment to focus on Jazz.
Except Jazz knew they wouldn’t.
Because the enforcer was dead.
So…
“What the pit am Ah supposed ta do now?”
To Be Continued
Author’s Notes 2: Muwahaha, yes, I’m evil XD But don’t worry, everything will turn out alright, you’ll see. This story has only just begun… Let me know what you think?